If We Want, the Value of True Individualism Could Overpower the Current Crass Individualism

Classical liberalism, traditional conservatism, and right-wing libertarianism don't understand individualism. Rather, these ideologies delve into despairing methodological individualism, a belief of not being able to predict the behavior of individuals, especially in large numbers.

Individualism is about appreciating and trying to understand other perspectives, how each individual is a node in a Web of relationships and existence. Each node is influenced by the Web. Each node contributes and builds the Web to the degree they have connection with the Web. The amount, strength, and type (positive/negative) of connections affects the experience that a node has and, in turn, the reaction the node has to the Web.

When connections minimize to none to near none, all the influences lead to loneliness and depression and/or anger. When someone is abandoned, excluded, or attacked, the Web falls toward fraying and destruction, which we all feel. When the Web is strong and supported through all our actions, the Web & the people/nodes who make it feel the connection, the belonging, and the positivity.

And it takes effort. We have to work at it. We need to work to appreciate and understand ourselves, the other nodes/people, and how we make up this Web. It takes effort to communicate our perspective and position. It also takes work to find other perspectives and positions. Reconciling contradictory perspectives can get difficult, especially when our identity has become embedded in a particular way of looking at things. Nonetheless, the effort and work to connect can do so much to push onto being better versions of ourselves while also helping us tap into the Web of relationships and existence. We can feel safe. We can let down our guard. We don't have to act defensively, even as we disagree, debate, and argue over perspectives, facts, and truth.

Arguably, such connections matter the most, as they can lead to connection, fighting loneliness, and even caring so much about the connection that the connection becomes the truth. The connection especially becomes truth as the nodes/people believe in the need to protect the integrity of nodes/people to protect the connections. Without the integrity of others, true connection can't exist; without true connection, other nodes/people can't discover and live their truth. Without true connection, you and I can't discover and live yours and my truth. We may have different truths, but without the acceptance the other truth, we can't accept our own truth.

In other words, without putting in the work and effort to understand, appreciate, and support others, we will surely fall, die, and never have truth.

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You can also check me out on Twitter at @screwjaw and Mastadon at @screwjaw@mastodon.social for articles, short form stuff, and a higher frequency/volume of opinions and truth!

Does Scarcity of Market Share Lead Billionaires, Entrepreneurs, and Crony Politicians into Tunnel Vision for More Market Share?

Only after the second chapter of Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir present an argument that scarcity creates an involuntary tunnel vision effect with attention. This book so far bolsters a hypothesis that I'm coming up with: that billionaires, successful entrepreneurs, and crony politicians in capitalist cultures forge paths of growth and accumulating more rather than sharing and supporting society by fighting against material scarcity because the billionaires, successful entrepreneurs, and crony politicians are stuck in a mindset of scarcity.

But a scarcity of what? It's not material wealth. Maybe it's time, but they could easily hand off things. Maybe privacy, authenticity of people around them, genuine relationships with people, etc. etc. No, accumulating more and more material things wouldn't help address those scarcities except for maybe paying more for security to guard against sycophants.

Maybe the billionaire, the successful entrepreneur, the crony politician feel a scarcity of attention market share. Even those with the biggest market share now have to fear competitors and innovators that threaten to make the billionaire/successful entrepreneur/crony politician obsolete. Because lose that market share, especially with a lavish lifestyle, the billionaire/successful entrepreneur/crony politician risks losing their lifestyle and possibly losing all their material wealth. They would fall into material scarcity, which they may never have experienced before or have a memory of material scarcity being a horrible experience.

And today's capitalist, competitive business, finance, and political culture further exacerbates this sense of scarcity for the billionaires, successful entrepreneurs, and crony politicians. This hypothesis doesn't look to garner sympathy for these billionaires and successful entrepreneurs (and politicians that have gained power through the lobbyists that advocate for these businesses, billionaires, and successful entrepreneurs) because this path hurts society more than it helps.

Heck, as an aside, just look at how much middle and high school culture in the United States supports the importance of popularity and market share of attention instead of being a good person.

Rather, I seek to indict society and developed Western culture for building up this ideology and inflicting people with this state of mind. Any thoughts on this hypothesis? Any thoughts on fighting this phenomenon? Any objections?

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You can also check me out on Twitter at @screwjaw and Mastadon at @screwjaw@mastodon.social for articles, short form stuff, and a higher frequency/volume of opinions and truth!

My Parable of The Golden Grasses of California & The Regionalism of the US

I (and many of you readers) live in this huge country, the United States. It has a lot of different regions from forest, plains (great ones), swampy areas, mountainous areas, even desert! In many ways, I feel kind of spoiled, like I'm somewhat taking it for granted, and wish I had so much more free leisure time to explore and discover this vast land.

Almost two months ago, I took a trip to California that challenged my expectations of the land, which also led to challenging me about the variety and diversity of people and cultures in this country. This experience came after hearing many political commentators on podcasts discuss this regional diversity around the country and how it influences elections and sentiment about our politicians. Trying to understand this surprise-to-me landscape in California has angled me to try getting a better appreciation of the differences of landscape and people around this country.

Before going deeper into this topic, I want to present a short collage of video compiled during a car drive to one of our destinations:



For those who have difficulty seeing, the videos mostly show a view of Californian landscape passing by as the wife and I drive on state highways going through some amount of elevation. This landscape has A LOT of yellow grass that I estimate comes up almost to the thighs or hips. Almost as a contradiction, the video also shows some deciduous trees with green leaves (somewhat spread out on the branches), close and in the distance, sometimes isolated and sometimes in a bunch. A lot of the grass looks expansive and goes far into the distance, while some of it is clumped together in something of a small clearing among a copse of trees.

The yellow grass really shocked me. I had never before visited Oakhurst or gone to Yosemite National Park, but back in March 2003, the wife and I had visited Sacramento and Davis with a day trip to San Francisco then back to Sacramento. The Sacramento Valley and the foot hills then looked green, full of life, and moist. It didn't stand out to me as an anything especially amazing to me, despite how far all that green stretched. We still lived around Boston in 2003, and I grew up in a mix of rural and urban Massachusetts that had a lot of green and rolling hills. The vastness and magnification of the landscape gave me pause, but just making things bigger didn't impress me.

The endless yellow grass this time threw me for a loop, though. It started in the plane even before we landed. Cruising and pulling down to the airport, I could only see road, water bodies, and yellow. I saw so much of it, I thought it was sand, wasteland or desert. We had banked around San Jose, which is close to San Francisco but still a good distance away. Maybe the desert of southern California transitioned to green northern California somewhere between San Jose and San Francisco. Maybe the present drought caused it or maybe the area had A LOT of beaches.

After landing, getting our rental car, and heading east out of San Jose and past San Francisco, I figured out that I hadn't seen desert from the plane. I had seen vast yellow, dry, rolling grasslands. The drive from the two San's to Oakhurst took somewhere between 4-6 drowsy hours (I hadn't slept much the night before) through yellow grasses as far as my eyes could see, over foot hills and into the distance once we got out of the foot hills. Imagine being in an endless vast desert, but instead of desolate sand with nothing else, I saw endless grass. What a shock after seeing that general area all green 15 years ago and thinking about all the produce that comes from California.

The yellow grass put me off, but something about the experience unsettled me: I didn't know if the yellow grass was normal and routine or an abnormal result of dry weather and a drought. The weather in San Francisco doesn't follow the normal course of seasons that I'm used to. Last time the wife and I had visited San Francisco a few years ago, our hosts commented how October provided one of the best times to visit San Francisco because the dampness, the cold, and the fog would fall back. The summer doesn't provide a good time to visit San Francisco because it gets cold and foggy then.

Temperature margins between all the places we visited this time freaked me out a little, too. Between Oakhurst, San Jose, and San Francisco, we faced a range of twenty degrees Fahrenheit, something like 80 degrees in Oakhurst, 70 degrees in San Jose, and 60 degrees in San Francisco.

Even the range of temperatures don't seem to vary so much in and around Chicago when comparing the shore of Lake Michigan to more inland areas. The definition of inland around the Chicago area of Lake Michigan might give a more drastic impression than the temperature differences in California. In California, the distance for changing temperatures seem to occur in the 10's of miles while in Chicago, the differential in temperature seems to occur within half a mile to a mile. It's not so drastic, maybe just three to five degrees but I believe it levels off at somewhere between seven and ten degrees, rather than the twenty degree range in California for a similar traveling time. Then again, I usually travel north from Chicago and a lot of the time on the road can involve a lot of waiting in traffic, A LOT OF WAITING.

The lead up to this trip and encountering this landscape created some cognitive dissonance. We had been hearing about the rise of massive fires daily as we grew closer to the beginning of our trip, and some of the fires had died down enough that our trip wouldn't be dangerous. Yosemite Park first let visitors back into its gates on the day that we visited. While driving into the valley, I looked across the river and saw spots of fire (including one long line going up a hill) that I believe that the authorities had planned to just let burn out because they had it under control.

On the Daily Zeitgeist podcast, based in California, they brought up the massive fires quite bit and also brought up the fact that California was going through an abnormal drought, which contributed to the fires going out of control. I expected to find California more desolate, more dead, but yet not desert. The gold grass went against my expectation, though. Maybe I didn't expect desert, but I think I expected dead grass all along the ground like hay or something. This in between state of the golden grass caused me to do a double take.

How many people do what I do when I do an intellectual or factual double take? How many other people go to Wikipedia or graze the Internet for information? I don't remember the figure, but I remember that I read that Californians or San Franciscans used a huge, almost unfathomable, amount of water just flushing the toilets (which I guess from looking at Wikipedia tonight or a quick Google search, San Francisco is trying to put into place some major water use standards). Other than being gobsmacked about the huge amount of water used to flush toilets and being reminded that humans need to do stuff about preserving water and minimizing our footprint on the Earth, I got the idea that some organizations and individuals were working on the problem. Hopefully they'll address the problem with enough time, but the water felt like a universal human issue, just with some details different here and there.

(Whatever happens, though, stay away from our Lakes!)

Looking into the golden grass that felt off (though somewhat drearily comforting by the end of the rural trip) yielded an interesting result. The golden grass didn't inspire a unique reaction in me. Apparently a lot of tourists feel off put by the golden grass during the dry season. Further investigation digs up people who have California pride about the golden grass. They hate the reactions of non-Californians to the golden grass. To these Californians, the wet and dry seasons are a natural cycle, the grasses going from green to gold is a natural cycle. These "patriotic" Californians see it as completely normal and part of nature, and they feel intruded upon by non-Californians coming into their state and trying to tell them how things should be.

Reading more and experiencing the gold grass, I came to appreciate it as a natural part of California with its own beauty that fits the area. It felt foreign, but the United States is a big place. For the most part, I haven't seen much of it. I've lived just a little over half my life in the northeast, mostly around Massachusetts with most of my traveling being to New Hampshire, Vermont, maybe Rhode Island or New York, and Quebec (as a kid, I also traveled a few times in Maine and once to British Columbia and Prince Edward Island). A little under the other half of my life, I've lived in Chicago and mostly traveled around Lake Michigan and a little into the interior of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and almost to Iowa.

I've done a little traveling to Florida, the Carolinas, and from DC to Blacksburg, VA but most of my East Coast travel has been along the Northeast Megalopolis from DC to Boston. Otherwise, my US travel has included mostly pleasant touristy locations: the Northern California Megalopolis, Los Angeles, Tucson, and not really much else other than highways between Chicago and Boston.

This listing off of places I've lived and visited comes down to something simple: I really haven't experienced much United States of America. Add to that: I haven't visited that many places that have challenged my assumptions. If I did visit such places, I generally passed through town, not really even exposing myself to people in town or the culture of it.

Suffice to say, the Sacramento Valley/Northern California megalopolis genuinely challenged my sensibilities of the United States of America by exposing me to its golden grass. Even just the exposure to

• Hearing people talk about the fires as both a routine and outlier event
• Trying to reach a Sequoia valley in a mid-size sedan then having to turn around after dealing with roads that got thinner and thinner while winding around a mountainside, roads no longer being paved, then seeing a steep incline with a lot of holes in the road, which caused us to turn around (after we did further research later, we learned that we could have walked the rest of he way, but we decided not to go back because even remembering the drive frayed our nerves)

made my ruminating mind that always asks questions (in a good curious way) dive deeper and deeper into questions. I grew to appreciate bigger cars when I earlier felt big cars had become about protecting the drivers from the outside world or some type of display of conspicuous consumption. All the while even in the Midwest and Northeast where I've lived most of my life, trucks and cars with four wheel drive have their places for regular drivers when it snows a ton.

Even just thinking about fire as a routine event boggles the mind. However, living on the northeast coast, knowing that despite hurricanes being rare, they can reach the Boston area and cause some damage. I remember living at the time of Hurricane Gloria. The only time I ran into the basement because of possible tornadoes occurred while I lived in Massachusetts. Still, tornadoes are more likely to occur in the Midwest, though I've never had a serious tornado scare (though I did see the sky turn a sickly green color).

Then temperature and snow. I've ridden my bike in temperatures in as low as -5 or -7 Fahrenheit along Lake Michigan on the way to work with plenty of snow on the ground. Did I mention that sometimes the wind chill at those times could get as low as -20 Fahrenheit (I don't think I've ridden in temperatures lower than that) during the polar vortex of 2014? I think I even walked to bus stop, all bundled up, when the wind chill had gotten all the way down to -50!

I remember talking to a friend at a party who had traveled down to New Orleans or some other location after a hurricane to help rebuild. While down there, the friend asked a hurricane survivor why they continued living in that area, considering all the hurricanes. The survivor brought up the cold of the Midwest, especially during times of extreme cold like in the polar vortex of 2014. My friend and I had reached the conclusion that every geographical area of the United States has it's own variation on natural obstacles that humans have to deal with routinely and sometimes in extreme situations.

That discussion about extreme weather, my experience with extreme weather, and my recent experience in California has impressed upon me how human ingenuity for dealing with the environment and how that coping can mold culture and personality. This article does an interesting job to highlight how the neoliberal practice of extracting natural resources from rural areas to disproportionately benefit urban areas also provides some perspective on how the economy, business practices, and regulations can can affect cultures and personalities (even though the big "oil savior" of shale fracking is generally yielding losses and requiring a lot of borrowing to stay in business).

All these revelations have an abstract tinge and haven't made any concrete landing. The different regions of the United States are all very different and develop different types of culture and people. Even within those areas, many different types of people come into existence and develop. The United States has to come to terms with this status.

I think this revelation has led me to something more of a chilled pessimism combined with hope for a better tomorrow when it comes to nationwide politics these days. I still have some anger, but I don't feel so confident in the direction of that anger, though I feel like I know what's right and what's wrong. I don't think different regions allows for some form of moral relativism. Some people will have no compunction about hurting or marginalizing others because The Other is different or because The Other has gotten in their way.

I believe in a minimum behavior and morality, and many in the United States, aren't meeting that minimum. Nonetheless, I don't have a full picture of how to resolve the matter of many in this nation not meeting the minimum yet having the power to empower and embolden the negative status quo or to continue behavior even worse than the status quo. I say this from a platform of white male privilege, and I wish I had a better understanding and way to correct this issue, but I don't. Especially after the last couple months of confirming a Supreme Court justice in such a way that undermines the confidence of the American People in the institution of the Supreme Court, thus undermining the American People's confidence in the US government.

I want everyone who can to get out there and vote, even if they can only submit a provisional ballot. The lack of confidence that can stop us from voting creates a positive feedback loop. By citizens not exercising their right and privilege to vote, we give away our nation, our state, our government to people who want to just gather together power to further undermine our confidence in the government and institutions so that they can just gather more power. Through our confidence in the heart of our system, through our confidence in our people power, we can help to rebuild a nation, a state, the institutions, and even a world in which we can be proud of and rise far above the minimum to build a truly just country and world. We can all fully realize ourselves by fully interrelating with each other in ways to learn and teach each other something better and something real.

All the signals out there for what our government will look like after November 6 conflict with each other and won't resolve themselves until after the General Election. Since I last heard Nate Silver talk about the Democrat's chance of winning back the government, he had it at Dems have a 75% chance of winning the House and 33% chance of the Dems winning the Senate. Frankly, all the talking about impeaching Trump and Kavanaugh likely will get no where because the Democrats simply won't have the numbers. Maybe the House will be able to start the process, but the Senate wouldn't be able to complete it.

The Resistance needs to continue resisting and working to change people's minds. Nonetheless, the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings have shown how still divided this country is and has even emboldened the Right, possibly to the levels of the "Blue Wave". Turnout will matter big and getting independents to come out and participate. The Democrats have historically been bad at coming out for mid-term elections. Everyone needs to come out to vote for the national, the state, and the local elections.

Local and state elections matter just as much, if not more than the national elections. Those officials have a lot more to do with our everyday lives and making lasting changes. On top of that, those positions can be stepping stones for good candidates to step up and up toward the national level to help determine the big, sensational values to protect and mold the spirit of our nation. Starting now, our votes on the state level now start affecting the district maps getting drawn in 2020-2021. Our votes can help determine how much our states get gerrymandered for the House and the Electoral College. Our voting now and always will play a big part in affecting our lives, our futures, justice, and the spirit and fabric of our nation.

I really really hope a lot of people get out the vote and cast their votes for justice. Maybe the just vote won't be a "pure" vote in the vein of purity politics, but we can determine the future of justice by choosing a realistic good candidate. As bad as it may sound, a good candidate is better than the shit show we have running our nation at the moment. I know electioneering against something isn't nearly as good, powerful, and motivating as electioneering for a positive vision for the future. Sometimes, though, it requires voting and fighting against something negative and horrible to start the turn around to a better, kinder future.

Despite all my motivating words, I still fear for the worst. After the election of 2016, I don't feel like I can truly trust polls and the overconfidence of the people on my side. That overconfidence can stop us from going out to vote. There are arguments that our individual votes mean nothing, and logically, it makes some sense. A lot of people haven't gone out to vote because they felt both big parties made a trashfire of a system and couldn't bring themselves to vote for either party. Regarding the first argument: your vote matters because the Left-Right divide is close enough that a few hundred votes here and there could make a big difference.

As for the second argument, the two parties and the system trashfire has come about because people like Manafort have been successful in destroying our confidence in system. We can only get confidence again in the system if we make it a system to be confident in it, and we all have to participate in making it better, through voting, through donating to parties, candidates, and nonprofits, through volunteering, and engaging civically in society.

So you hold our futures in your hands. Please go out and vote. Please help make this country and the world a better, kinder place.

I have a final correction and ending story that I feel discredits my feeling that everyone is as different as I had come to believe and also attacks the facade of our low-confidence government and system. As things turn out, the golden grasses of California is an invasive species. In one sense, it feels disheartening because the natural fauna that was suited to the local environment (the native plants had a lot more resistance to fire) has died out and likely can't be revived to its past glory, especially in our lifetime.

The golden grasses in California feel like a parable for our passionate partisan divides. People who grew up in California feel strongly about the nativeness of the golden grass. They argue with people outside the region about the naturalness of the golden grass. History has buried the truth of the golden grass's invasiveness, though, much like how the divisions of partisanship has come from the lies of ignorance, essentialism, and history. Like learning about the true native fauna of California, the truth of

• the divisions
• the justice
• humanity
• kindness
• climate
• systems

can be found and acted upon to make a better world. To do that, though, we have to exercise kindness, humbleness, and desire to

• learn
• teach
• empathize
• connect

with each other. Exercising all those characters will help us get to a better place for all.

I believe we can do it. I believe you can do it. Now you just have to believe and execute that belief. If you haven't done anything to embolden justice in the world, start with voting on November 6. If you've already voted and done other things, keep on doing it.

Over and above that, though, we all need to humble ourselves, learn kindness and caring, and work really damn hard to learn and work to make the world better. Don't forget to vote on November 6, though, because you can do that while doing all that other great stuff, too.

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Authentic Empathy vs Cynical Empathy

I can't seem to manage my time well since coming back from vacation. Maybe, on the flipside, I've taken to managing my time better since coming back. It really comes down to figuring out what I'm valuing at any time, mapping it out in time, then figuring out what's most important to do now verse doing down the road.

I'm sad that I've prioritized doing some things over political activism or even just other things that could lead to a more organized life that will lead to better control. My gauge for this feels especially triggered because the anniversary of Charlottesville and the murder of Heather Heyer caused by a protesting bigot emboldened by the election of [45] comes around in about two months. I had engaged politically for a few months after that. It didn't come to much, but I tried to do something.

Now I feel mostly battered down by the news I hear or when I'm scanning through Facebook (ironically, Twitter has provided more upbeatness. . .but I think that mostly comes from Twitter people have more battle scars from politics and social/cultural battles, though it can still get depressing). I've posted things about the need for self care, but have I become too indulgent in my self care. I don't feel like it, but I don't feel as if I have the energy to do much else, and feel some shame/guilt about it since I have some privilege that a lot of it doesn't affect me materially, but it definitely cuts away at my soul.

Admittedly, much of the "productive procrastinating" I've done has largely been about getting political and social things straight and defined in my head, much of it occurring through discussion on social media. Something about the vehicle of social media really pulls me into getting me to understand and be clear about the issues.

With the above in mind and to some advice I meant to publish in my essay series called "Increasing Creativity: Compounding...." ("Increasing Creativity Part 1: Compound Interest, An Applicable Financial Concept" and Increasing Creativity Part 2: Compounding Sources). I really need to get to completing "Increasing Creativity Part 3: Compounding Projects". . .. The advice boils down to: sometimes you don't have to do that huge project all at once, especially if it contains a bunch of building blocks. Doing it all at once will

1. Take you awhile to complete
2. Won't yield as much return

If you can write multiple articles/essays or books that build up to the larger argument, you can

1. Publish more
2. Get more exposure
3. Possibly get paid maore

In addition, if it works out well, you can "re-invest" the monetary, social, and information resource yields back into the project, which can make future work on it easier and possibly even help to get other aspects of life out of the way.

My last entry mentioned a large essay I had started working on before going on vacation a couple weeks ago. Since then I have remembered a term that I wanted to include in the essay, but I don't think has happened yet. I have also thought up a contrasting term that I think will have its use in the essay and in my future works, whether blog entries or hopefully someday published essays. So instead of defining these two terms in the future essay (though I might have to in an official off-blog published work if I ever do such a thing), I define them below:

• Authentic Empathy: A sense and/or appreciation that welcoming, supporting, and contribution to the flourishing of other living beings and natural living systems will lead to a reproducible sense of purpose, meaning, possibly joy and happiness, and can very likely assist in developing one's own identity. Authentic empathy will bring emotional attunement.
  
  
• Cynical Empathy: Manipulating or violating other living beings and natural living systems, the understanding of their feelings, motives, states of being, and thoughts, for personal gain, pleasure, compulsion for cruelty, or even for national security or emboldening group or identity solidarity rather than the purposes of authentic empathy, which will lead to endless toil, conflict, and/or if the manipulated or violated are ever obliterated or fully dominated, self destruction since the hatred of cynical empathy will look for fuel somewhere. Cynical empathy creates social discord.

As authentic empathy can provide reproducible sense of meaning and development, cyncial empathy will provide endless destruction and despair, constantly looking for new targets and, if it hasn't already, will turn on the source if it has no where else to go. Cynical empathy is not an identity, a purpose, or meaning. It is a strategy, one of maladaption.

As such, many bets are off with those who practice cynical empathy. For those who practice authentic empathy, they have the right to avoid those who practice cynical empathy. If someone can bear it who wants to take heroic means to practice authentic empathy and interact with those using cynical empathy, the authentic empaths should feel free to do what they can to help cynical empaths to see the benefits of authentic empathy and learn how to practice it.

Authentic empaths also have the right to defend themselves against cynical empaths but are not advised to do so in ways that compromises their authenticity. Self care is imperative. If they need to leave to maintain their authenticity, that's fine. Some cynical empaths may, in the end, never want to shed their cynicism and became authentic. The final decision is their's. All that can be done with authentic empathy is to try helping others to reach their full authentic potential.

Also, keep in mind that authentic empathy does not give someone the right to define others or to impose definitions onto others. That can be hostile and a form of violation. If another asks for assistance to help find definition, help but do not force. You're role is to welcome, support, and contribute, not to define.

Feel free to accept or decline my definitions for your life. You may need them to read my future works, however, so please familiarize yourself with them if you intend on continuing to read my work and have discussions with me.

I may discarding, edit, or refine this terminology in the future. For now, though, I think these terms will provide much assistance in my discussion and future works. Any chance it helps you?

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I Love Johnny Sprockets

I got into a bike-on-bike collision this morning.

Should have been prepared for it five minutes earlier. I had tempted fate. Thought about how riding my bike everyday to work would make me sooooo healthy and all that. I stopped congratulating myself when I remembered that riding a bike could be risky: a crazy, fatal uncontrollable accident could happen at any moment.

Of course, I had an accident five minutes later.

Below is a map of the intersection where the accident occurred:


View Larger Map

Imagine me coming from the southwest corner heading north on the Lakefront Trail. I'm having a grand old time, taking in the nice weather, feeling the wind in my face, finally waking up from the morning slog. All the usual, pleasant, quiet before the storm stuff.

I notice some guy on a street bike speeding down from the northwest on W Belmont Harbor Drive. He takes as sharp a right turn as he can to head southwest down the Lakefront Trail. The guy probably can't turn that sharp, though, or he'll flip the bike or something.

Looking back I can rationalize the course of events that way.

At the time, my sense of causality both slowed down and skipped a couple frames at the same time. My mind saw what unfolded in front of me and refused to accept it. What idiot would be crossing into my lane and head straight toward me? It failed to make sense, so I put my trust into this guy. He must know what he's doing and must be going fast enough to avoid collision. Why else would he try to cross the path if he didn't know he could do it?

He was an idiot. He had no idea what he was doing. He took the right onto the path too fast and had completely lost control.

I didn't make all those connections until the very last moment. I entered avoid the idiot mode. I tried turning left as best I could. It wasn't enough. Of course, my instincts didn't let me turn that sharp. If I did, I would flip or wipe out on the pavement.

Through all the slo-mo frame skipping, I realized the futility of avoidance. I entered the next stage: loss control. Keeping injury to a minimum, that is. I had just ran my front wheel into this guy's back wheel then had jumped off my bike, after all. It's funny how we have thoughts about consequences before being conscious of the cause sometimes. I think a part of my mind had chuckled at this observation while my repitilian mind had focused on preventing major wounds by crashing into the grass.

No major wounds that I know of. I have my left wrist wrapped up in a bandage right now, but I had anger surging through me, the fear of being late to work, worry about hospital bills and possible bike repairs. Money's tight right now. . .and what?! My handlebars were in a super weird angle!

I became determined to get the guy's number. After cursing him out a little, I told him he would give me his name and number. . .after I turned on my phone. I assume I gave him a steely glare and curled my lip (the lip thing is what I do when I'm angry, apparently).

My phone always takes a little time to boot up. The guy asked me if I had a pen and paper. I told him no. He would just have to wait and wait he did.

All that settled, I made my way to work. The handlebars at their odd angle took a little getting used to, but I got it down. Amazing how our minds and bodies can compensate for distortions in reality that don't cause injury.

The adrenaline started wearing out. I popped a couple Ibuprofen at work. Wrist hasn't swollen at all. Pain isn't all that bad. Keeping it wrapped and elevated should probably do the trick in a couple weeks.

This accident makes for my third bike accident in Chicago (Michi didn't appreciate me smacking into a car a couple days before we got married. . .again, just got banged up is all). If I'm not in the emergency room by now, I just need some R&R.

I worried more about the cost of fixing the handlebars than dealing with my wrist. Even if I have to get x-rays and stuff, health insurance will handle it well enough until I get the dumb ass other guy to pay for stuff. I would have to pay 100% out of pocket to repair my bike until I get reimbursed. . .and reimbursement isn't guaranteed. Along with being an idiot, the guy could be a jerk, too.

Imagine how relieved I felt when one of the register people up front at Johnny Sprockets diagnosed the problem, fixed it in five minutes then didn't charge me a cent. I even asked if it cost anything. The guy just said nope.

I don't know if it has anything to do with being a regular for repairs there. Could just be that they're awesome for things that take minimal effort.

Doesn't matter. They're awesome. I love Johnny Sprockets and don't hesitate to tell anyone to go there for their bike needs. If you have bike needs, go. They just might help you feel like there's still good in the world after a crappy day of worry and pain from a dumb bike accident that you had little chance of avoiding.

And oh yeah, don't be an idiot when you making tight turns on your bike. Slow down and take your time.

LINKS OF NOTE:

• Neuroscience vs philosophy: Taking aim at free will
• Does your brain really have the power to see the world upside-down?
• Why should I use my health insurance to pay for my medical expenses if the accident was not my fault?
• Johnny Sprockets

Gratitude & Consideration: Improving Self Esteem & Society

A couple months ago at a college alumni function I learned a lesson that has improved my quality of life. It involved accepting responsibility for being a cool and good person. Someone else who went to school after me said that people told them that I was someone worth knowing. Always trying to come off as humble, I said something about not understanding how I developed a reputation that survived me, I'm not anyone special that has done anything significant.

An old friend didn't let me finish my sentence. They scolded me that I am worth knowing and that I should accept those types of compliments. The function ended soon after, but my friend's advice has stuck with me.

Maybe accepting compliments wouldn't hurt. After all, we give ourselves the worst criticism. Psychologically healthier people out there generate an illusion of inflated abilities, skills, experience and state of being. A lot of psychological studies make this argument.

I, on the other hand, have always had more of a negative or sober assessment of myself and situation. Having this old friend tell me I should accept compliments got me thinking that maybe I had an overly negative view of myself rather than realistic. What would it hurt to accept compliments indiscriminately for a bit?

A couple weeks later, I accompanied the wife to Lakes of a Fire (a local Burning Man-style event or more descriptively, an art, radical expression, trade/bartering and fire dancing event).

I went with her last year to Lakes of Fire for the first time. I had an OK time, something new but nothing that got me super excited or anything. It had nothing to do with the people or the event. I just had other things on my mind and hadn't gotten into the right mindset.

Accepting compliments elevated my experience this year. I said thank you and you’re welcome whenever I received and gave compliments or favors. Even once when someone complimented me on being awesome, I simply said “I know.” Yeah, kind of conceited, but we had a good laugh. Switching things up has its place.

I have more or less maintained this trait of gratitude and consideration, depending on the social milieu that I find myself in. I’ve also continued feeling a high subjective state of well being and having great interactions with people.

My theory goes along the lines that gratitude and consideration serves us more than just good manners and etiquette. For the subjective self, accepting compliments gets you to start believing them and even to engage in positive self talk that bolsters your elevated self esteem.

Self affirmations sound lame and even insincere, but having a stable self esteem goes a long way to improving quality of life for you and those around you. Fake it until you make it (or start believing it), they say. Just don’t let it go to your head so much that you start hurting other people.

I think the next part of my hypothesis touches on not hurting people. Both too much conceit and too much self abnegation in reaction to a compliment casts doubt on the complimentor. Showing too much conceit tells the complimentor they’ve misjudged someone’s sense of reality. Too much self abnegation tells the complimentor they’ve misjudged their own sense of reality.

People like to share concepts of reality and narratives, as long as their own reality checking facility doesn’t cast too much doubt. That kind of doubt causes a lot of cognitive dissonance and requires work to reconcile.

Someone else inducing that kind of dissonance and doubt with their own self appraisal makes it even worse. They’re supposed to know themselves better than an outside complimentor would know them. They have just distanced themselves from the complimentor.

More knowledge and familiarity means higher levels intimacy and comfort. Impractically negating established intimacy or advances of intimacy (lack of time, other commitments being practical reasons) becomes a slap in the face. It rejects the worth of knowing and getting to know the complimentor. As accepting compliments adds to positive self talk, rejection can contribute to negative self talk.

Accepting a compliment provides a compliment, both of judgment and the ability to build intimacy or camaraderie. Rejecting a compliment, however, can give insult. It casts doubt on a person’s judgment and their ability to build intimacy and camaraderie.

The original complimentor than accepts an unsaid compliment by saying “You’re welcome” and accepting gratitude. They have acknowledged being told they have a good sense of reality and judge of character. Their narrative has received affirmation and have made connection with another human, two of the most joyful experiences we can have.

People do everyone a favor by accepting compliments. They contribute to everyone’s self esteem and subjective well being by encouraging positive self talk all around.

Without a good practical reason to decline a compliment, accept them to better yourself and to improve the state of society. I guarantee that you’ll grab more joy from life. Just try it. You’ll see. I did.


LINKS OF NOTE: A lot of psychological studies argue positive illusions leads to better mental health, Lakes of a Fire, Burning Man

Ruminations on Sociability in Animals While at the Aquarium

I felt like a human this past Monday at the aquarium watching beluga whales. They had trainers interacting with them and all, but I still felt touched. So touched, in fact, that I came close to tears.

I tend to feel that way when characters in fiction or on TV and movies let their guard down with each other or by themselves. Maybe it comes from some voyeuristic tendency, as I don’t have this reaction interacting with other people in the moment. Maybe it has something to with the privacy created by people focusing totally on something other than me.

The whales and trainers got me going when the explanation of how the trainers win trust of the whales. Giving them fish and scratching their tongues, that’s all I remember from the list of things that the belugas like humans doing for them.

Trust built through bribery, trainers move onto teaching the belugas tricks and simple communication. I jest about bribery. The trainers and belugas reminded me a bit of building a relationship with a cat. More like I remembered someone telling me that cats have strong social tendencies, even though I often thought of cats as loners. Feral cats form colonies, though.

Not to sound like a crazy cat lady, but the wife and I have a great relationship with our cats. It has improved a lot since we had to chase the girl cat around a basement to stuff her in a crate and take her home. Now she sits next to me on a chair when I’m using the computer at the kitchen table. Now, seven or so years later, we have a family of four that loves spending lots of time together.

Per Wikipedia, belugas have strong social tendencies, too. Doesn’t come as a surprise considering their show. I didn’t know it at the time, though.

The trainers and belugas showed their great relationship. Trainers showed tons of warmth, generosity and sincerity. Belugas displayed tons of energy doing tricks and swimming around, only overtaken by their desire for food and affection. Their connection felt authentic, sincere, reciprocal, enthusiastic and warm.

Their interaction brought heart to the idea of a contract. We generally think of contracts as cold, boring pieces of paper that suck life out of people relating to each other. People and non-human entities make contracts to protect themselves from possible abuses or to make sure that one party does what the other wants them to do. Contracts focus on taking from the relationship what each party can get.

The belugas and trainers focused more on giving than taking. Maybe the whales didn’t so much. They REALLY liked getting fish and having their tongues rubbed, but they looked grateful and humbled by all the attention. Even as they looked impatient doing tricks, their irritation seemed not so much about getting food or a tickle. They wanted to engage the trainer and connect.

At the same time, the trainers looked a little bored when the belugas went off to do their tricks. They must have felt proud by the whales wowing the audience, but they looked bored and impatient to get back to connecting and interacting with the belugas.

The show returned life to contracts by focusing more on connecting through giving and taking rather than taking benefit from one or the other. Being social is fundamental for many animals, from humans to whales to cats, even to plenty of fish that come together to form schools.

Social instincts play such a central role, at least for me, that seeing it in action chokes me up a wee little bit. But I could just be sensitive.


LINKS OF INTEREST: beluga whales, Feral cats

Benefits and Lure of Flow Experience with My Bachelors Project

Did you know that when you're engrossed in an activity that you enjoy, your brain can enter a near-meditative state, beneficial to body, mind and soul?

- Humana Financial Protection Products brochure

I got this quote from a brochure I received with the policy kit for my Critical Illness insurance policy. It hits upon how I feel about my writing and the type of experiences we should look for in life (as long the behavior, itself, isn't immoral and hurts others).

In full disclosure for those who don't know me: I am licensed as a personal lines, life, health and accident insurance agent in the State of Illinois. It's not my first choice, but I am finding myself enjoying working with people to put together a personal plan of financial protection.

These days I'm working most often with health, dental, vision, critical illness and hospital indemnity plans. I agree that these things can be so intimidating that consumers may grow frustrated, but I feel a good agent can provide access and craft a personal plan to provide great peace of mind. Don't hesitate to e-mail me if you live in Illinois and want to see what peace of
mind could be available to you.

Enough self promotion for my day job.

I've randomly encountered the concept of Flow for the last thirteen years or so. A friend wrote about it in a college paper. I've experienced it here and there. Personalities on TV, generally sports stars, have discussed it. I've tried to mine it for material to write my project.

An insurance company putting it into a brochure legitimizes Flow as something worth looking into and trying to work into life.

I've incorporated it in my life already with my research and writing activities. Throughout the years I've likened my bachelors project as an abusive relationship. The frustration becomes so exhausting sometimes that I feel like it has beat me up.

I can't quit it, though. Reaching the point when I just want to throw it down and move on with life, it sucks me back in. I can't stop thinking about it. I have had great times with it. I've learned a lot while working on it. What does it say about me if I quit it? Will any activities be just a backtrack to look at the project with a new perspective or will it be something independent that I really want to do for its own merits? And think of all the great times I've had with this bachelors project. I've come so far with it, how can I just stop here?

There is an academic paper available for purchase online called The Role of Flow Experience in Cyber-Game Addiction. I haven't read it. Nonetheless, having it come up in a Google search using "flow" and "addiction" illustrates that Flow can have some part in the addiction process.

I don't know. The jury is still out. But Sunday night, I did some intense researching that will hopefully bear some fruit. I wasn't the most pleasant person to be around, and I procrastinated on some of my duties (one which didn't need doing because of fortuitous events the next day, anyway).

I dreamt that night, though. I can't remember having any dreams in a long awhile. I made up for my Sunday night sociopathy on Monday night with the wife. I felt great at work during the day Monday when I would have rather been at home doing some more research or writing about the research I had done. I even had the ability to think about and discuss other things. I'm often obsessed about the project when not in the midst of getting my "fix."

So, who knows? Getting into the Flow greatly improves life, but it has the possibility of addiction? An insurance company, almost inherently a conservative entity, states that the Flow experience (using more words than that) has benefits.

As with all things in life, striking the balance between Flow and everyday life, even joyful parts in life, becomes a challenge. Challenge isn't bad, even when it becomes difficult. What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger, they say.

In my adult life, though, I often feel that it's those Flow experiences that make life worth living. I'll keep pursuing them for now.


Links of interest: Humana Financial Protection Products brochure, Flow, The Role of Flow Experience in Cyber-Game Addiction

Choking Relaxation

The wife and I have had an active yet relaxing weekend so far. Last night after work, we went to a bar to watch the debates, the event being an Obama fundraiser. I have yet to decide who to vote for on Election Day (I'm not keeping my options to the major two parties, either), and I don't intend on announcing it to the public.

Interesting, though, to watch a debate amongst a partisan crowd. Had a hard time hearing McCain near the end with the crowd hissing and sneering at McCain while talking.

This morning, we woke up early to jump on the bus to get downtown and meet an out-of-town friend at The Original Pancake House. I didn't go too adventurous with my food choices, but they didn't have too many choices for a vegetarian that doesn't do dairy. Nothing too exciting for me, but their featuring apples on pancakes in the menu looked interesting.

Parting ways with our friend, we decided to check out a matinee of Choke. We, rather, decided to check out a matinee and figured Choke made for an interesting option and gave us enough time to settle into the theater before the 20 minutes of previews started.

I have a limited exposure to Chuck Palahniuck, the writer of the novel. I've seen Fight Club but haven't read the novel. I went with the wife to a Palahniuck reading at The Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, MA from a compilation of non-fiction he had published.

Choke doesn't reach the level of grandness, political/financial commentary or even of plot as Fight Club. Neither does Choke have the gross out factor of Stranger than Fiction: True Stories. The movie sticks to a small, personal scale. It shows some boobs, characters make some off-color sexualized comments, they have some neutered sex scenes and the movie centers around a sex addict attending a support group for sex addicts.

Choke doesn't have a conventional and linear plot. It centers more around the theme of loneliness and the habits that people follow to protect their vulnerable inner selves. Victor, the sexually-addicted main character, pretty much attends the sex addicts support group, works at a colonial era living museum, visits his mother suffering from alzheimers in a rest home and hangs out with his fellow sex addict friend. Then, one day, he meets Paige, a friend of Victor's mom. Victor's journey of "redemption," growth and revealing flashbacks starts from there but doesn't end when the movie does, whence Victor possibly even regressed back to where he started.

I haven't read any reviews, but by the progress of the plot and the movie's ending, I can understand what I've heard about bad reviews. The movie provides more of a character study than a plot, per se. The movies follows Victor's discovery of his loneliness and his habits to protect his vulnerable self. His best friend also makes his own discoveries and follows his own path of growth. Memories that Victor has about his mom and comments made by his mom provide some interesting revelations about Victor and also some quirky situations.

In the long run, Choke doesn't deliver the expected, conventional payoff. I have no problem with the undesired end, unlike, I'm expecting most of the other people who see this movie. Solving this dissatisfaction requires the audience to adhere to the belief in value of the journey is in the journey, not in reaching the goal. I can't be 100% sure, but the movie has enough coherent facts to make the ending true on the level of probability to Victor's character.

Choke works for me because of the themes it explores and the sincerity in which it explores them. Some of the characters have outlandish qualities that make them interesting and sometimes amusing oddities rather than realistic, but Victor's vulnerabilities make him very human and relatable. Most of us don't reach the pathological levels of protecting ourselves from emotional pain and embarrassment, but we all feel vulnerable to other people hurting us.

A normal person in a normal situation wouldn't provide the insight into our vulnerable sides. We all have normal habits that we all accept as regular behavior. Indoctrination into our society through family, school and other institutions teach us the etiquette we need not only to protect ourselves, but sometimes also to protect the other people around us, for their benefit and our benefit. Of course, protecting ourselves and others in these ways can be maladaptive emotionally and psychologically. Following someone pathologically protecting themselves with these types of habits shows us that we all protect ourselves. . .especially when they're protecting the same thing that we are.

Most reviewers and movie goers won't like Choke. They ostensibly won't like it because of unlikeable characters or even an unconventional plot. Maybe, though, people could have a problem with the movie because it shows them just how vulnerable they are. I bet no one will admit it, though.

Sense and Memory

Back in the spring semester of 1999 at college, I remember experiencing my visual memories in a unique way. At the time, I liked to say that I saw my memory in technicolor, which I guess could still apply.

But now, after having my attention directed toward Super 8mm film from our wedding videographer, I think a better description would be that during that semester at college, I saw my visual memories in Super 8mm film with the color heavily saturated. I think the stronger the memory, the more saturated the color became.

And the strange thing: remembering that semester of college presently, I think the visuals have a lot of shadows and it's very dark. I haven't had visual memories in color saturated Super 8mm film in a long while, though. At least, not of anything else other than my wedding on my TV at home.

I wonder what influenced me to see my memories in that way back then. A lot of those Super 8mm film memories were some length of time previous of the time I re-experienced the memory. So long before, in fact, that the events in the memories felt like they came from a whole other life or the life of someone else.

And kind of sadly, I haven't really experienced such vivid memory recall for a long time now. Well, maybe I did today, but it involved smell, more specifically, the possible smell of cats and dogs. Since the wife and I adopted Max and Miriya, the brother and sister cat, I've been surprised that our apartments hasn't acquired an overwhelming stench of animal.

Today, I remembered an old friend who had cats and a dog, and his family had that animal stench smell in their house, all the time. That smell just wouldn't leave my olfactory sense. Plenty of memories about that friend flooded me after the sense of cat and dog, but those are kind of private.

Smell and memory reminds me of a time that a girl "broke up" with me (long story. . .that will not be broadcast on the Internet). After she broke up with me, I couldn't get the smell of her perfume out of my nose for weeks, and while I had that smell in my nose, I couldn't get rid of the desire to be around her. This whole thing would occur more when I was alone and trying to focus on something else. The strangest thing, though, the smell of her perfume annoyed me!

Funny enough, accidentally capturing this girl's perfume in my nose happened during the same semester that I saw my visual memories in Super 8mm film. Suffice to say, it was something of an intense semester.

My Many Tracked Brain

The other week, I got hyperfocused researching some aspects of the DC comics universe on Wikipedia. I need to research geeky things sometimes because I didn't really get into them back in the day like the wife and some of my friends have.

My automatic, subconscious mind, however, kept on flashing intimations of the area behind the register of Wendy's in Ayer, MA. That was where I had my first real, official job. I kept on picturing a young, zitty kid (not necessarily me, mind you. . .since this kid had red hair and freckles) with an apron and a paper hat on, holding a big wire thing used to drop the fries into the deep fryer. The things drip, drip, dripped grease. I could feel the massive heat and oil all over my face.

While hyperfocusing on researching the universes of some TV shows, flashes intimations of a late night at my college, right in front the library, at the top of a small hill. It's usually night.

Interesting how my brain makes these intimations while I'm getting all hyperfocused on the 'net. I have the feeling that the same thing happens to other people.

I have this theory that this kind of hyperfocused research and focusing on certain things triggers these kinds of intimations. It could happen because that kind of research activates a certain part of the brain or maybe it triggers some kind of process that brings up these intimations. The themes of these little "research projects" have somehow become associated with memories. I don't know if the connect is direct, indirect or even possibly practically random. These associations just kind of happen.

It kind of works like when I forget something or lose something. Trying to remember the something, I sometimes just have to blank my mind and let the memory bubble to the top. At other times, I have to backtrack through my brain, association by association, forwards, backwards, side by side, up, down. . .whatever way seems like a good way to go.

And back in my youth, I could sometimes just pour myself a cup of milk and drink it to remember something that I blanked on. I wonder if soy milk could do the same thing for me.

Birthing and Marrying Relatives, Views on Education and Absurd Speculations on the Sincerity of Memoir

On June 30, I gained a nephew and niece through marriage. I'll be getting my first niece by blood relation at some point in the next couple days. Strangely shocking but very neat.

Cool as that news is, it doesn't really help the word count for this entry.

I've been thinking about memoirs for the last couple days, inspired by a late night discussion that I had with the wife and someone considering going to grad school for creative nonfiction. The conversation, itself, really harked back to the days of late night undergrad discussions. . .which I didn't actually experience. Most of my crazy non-assignment-related late nights in undergrad were spent doing silly fun things with the fascist fun party or cursing myself for having insomnia.

A disclaimer in regards to my view on grad school or any college experience for that matter: a lot of it is about putting qualifications down on a resume. Seriously, anyone driven enough can teach themselves or find ways to learn about a subject or topic without paying tons of money for the education. . .in regards to a liberal arts, creative or artistic direction.

Maybe the undergrad degree isn't so bad, since it really provides a fast track to learning a lot of stuff and for honing the mind for thinking without the distractions of the real world. A grad degree and non-accredited classes, however, in my opinion, can pretty much suck away money and time that could be better used making money or focusing attention on a particular project, which can then be sold as a product at some later date. For those who need to put something on a resume or have certain experience to achieve a certain goal, grad school may just be a good option.

Let's move away from my disclaimer that could turn into a long long tangent, though.

Apparently, as I gathered from the seminar about getting a literary agent that I attended with the wife a few weeks ago, memoirs are the latest raging trend for reading material. Chick lit was the trend a few years ago. The memoir trend worries me at a gut level.

Some introspection and light research has led me to believe that the trend causes me a bit of anxiety for two reasons: (1) As an aspiring novelist, I fear my market share will be stolen away from me and (2) a career memoirist strikes me as something of an inauthentic vocation. I won't dignify the first reaction with any further attention, since it comes from the gut and probably doesn't have much grounding in reality.

The authenticity angle intrigues me, though, especially since many people, including Plato, have made remarks about fiction being a lie, which could thus lead to an accusation of inauthenticity. Why do I feel comfortable with writing fiction but see memoir as something that could spawn insincerity?

In full disclosure and at the risk of sparking the wrath of the wife, I don't have an issue with memoirs, in themselves, especially if they have a novel angle, have the ability to edify a reader (how aristocratic is that?) and, to some degree, the writing of the memoir is incidental to the experience that provides the content and inspiration. It's the mass production then commodification of human experience, similar to reality TV (and explore in the novel that I'm writing), for the entertainment of an audience that gets me in the craw.

Memoirs written after an out of the ordinary experience or even everyday life with a novel spin on it that would have happened anyway strikes me as a noble thing to do. It could affect someone else to look at the world differently and have a real connection. As I've heard writers talk about how they have their memoir and plan on writing more in a way that novelists talk about their book and wanting to get it published that punches me in the metaphorical gut.

To me, discussing it this way gives me the impression that someone plans on writing another memoir afterward, another one after that and another one then one more and so on and son. Addressing the memoir in this way makes me thinking of someone thinking to themselves, "OK, I've marketed that memoir to all hell, and I've made a good deal of money off of it. . .now what kind of interesting experience can I have now to provide the content for my next memoir, which an audience would want to read and will buy! What kind of experience will I have to have?"

Does a memoirist even need to write another one once they've become a celebrity from it? Why not hang out with Brad and Angelina? Or how about party it up with Brittany and Lindsay? Hell, the memoirist could probably just do a reality TV show to ween other memoirists, "America's Next Memoirist!" Or how about star in an effects-laden horror or science fiction movie? Guest star all over the TV. Record an album that your producer could perfect until the memoirist isn't even really there, just their face. Do a whole bunch of advertisements on TV. . ..

Would the memoirist even need good looks or an amiable personality? That could even add to the mystery of the memoirist's celebrity status. How could such a cantankerous ass get all this attention? Everyone's paying attention to the windbag, though, so I better keep an eye on them to see what they're doing next, so I can talk about it at the water cooler.

Um. . .yeah, I lost track of my thoughts there, got carried away with the limits of absurdity there. Let's leave it at that, though. Maybe someday I'll return to it with some real thoughts (isn't writing a blog with the intention of attracting attention just as bad as being a career memoirist?). . .the idea of comparing memoir to fiction sounds like an interesting challenge. Maybe I'll have to take it up someday.

Shakespeare was SOOOOOOOOO right [about motivation]!

An e-mail I wrote to the fiancee today:

This is one of those moments where you go, "Yeah, I know. . .."

But this is kinda big for me.

I just never really realized the extent that people will go to get attention. . .It's mind blowing to me.

Maybe because I kinda do the same thing, just by being busy all the time and apparently not having time for people.

It just blows my mind that I didn't understand Iago. . .even though he made a great villain, if somewhat transparent to the audience.

The More Thinking About Money, The Less Helpful We Become

Once again, my night will get taken up mostly by catching up on some TiVo while filing about a year's worth of financial paperwork. At the end of the night I plan on editing the current short story for 10 minutes or so.

Someday, I will write a little rant about some problems I've run into with the short story. I think the title of that entry will be something like 'The Devil in the Details.'

For the lack of coming up with anything substantial, myself, tonight, I submit to my audience Does Money Make You Mean?

And who said that I wouldn't encounter real stimulating stuff while working at an insurance agency?